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As the time of His passion and death approach, Jesus patiently tells the Jews (and us) once more that what He does is not through His humanity but through God the Father. It is impossible to understand and thus sometimes so difficult to truly trust and believe in that Father/Son relationship. It is not like any other father/son relationship, not even an idealized relationship between father and son that we know of. It is a relationship of perfect love. Yet this Father loved us so very much that He sent His beloved Son to take on our humanity in order to redeem us. And, the Son loves us and His Father so much that He would willingly suffer the indignities thrown at Him not just by the Jews of the time but all of us throughout time. As He knows that the time of intense physical suffering and death are approaching, Jesus does not turn His back on the Jews or us. He continues to try to explain and to hold out hope to all of us that the day of resurrection is coming. He is not just foretelling His resurrection, but ours. He is telling us “the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live.” Jesus is inviting us not only to trust in His incomprehensible relationship with His Father, but to enter into it in our very limited human capacity. How much are we like the Jews of that time, blind to the loving relationship between Father and Son? How often do we reject the invitation to hear, to share in that infinite love? Does it make any sense to turn our backs on that love, a love that is boundless; a love that is all forgiving and ours for eternity? As we approach Holy Week may we open our ears to hear and renew our faith in the love between Father and Son that spills over to engulf us in all of its radiance. |